Cathy is nominally Jewish – and so is her daughter Chloe. Chloe’s 5 so she’s very keen on any excuse to get presents. Which is why we’re celebrating Hanukkah this year.
Last night we did the menorah and Chloe got two presents. After that she had maccabes (actually mac and cheese) and we ate latkes. I do think Hanukkah is kind of a rotten holiday – but it’s worth biting my tongue to see Chloe do her Hanukkah dance.
Here’s what I mean when I say it’s ‘rotten’:
Along with Greek science and military prowess came a whole culture that celebrated beauty both in art and in the human body, presented the world with the triumph of rational thought in the works of Plato and Aristotle, and rejoiced in the complexities of life presented in the theater of Aeschylus, Euripides and Aristophanes. But away with all that, says Lerner. Let us instead celebrate the Maccabean peasants who wanted to destroy Hellenism and restore what he actually calls “oldtime religion.” His excuse for preferring fundamentalist thuggery to secularism and philosophy is that Hellenism was “imperialistic,” but the Hasmonean regime that resulted from the Maccabean revolt soon became exorbitantly corrupt, vicious, and divided, and encouraged the Roman annexation of Judea…. as ever, one stands aghast at the pathetic scale of the supposed “miracle.” As a consequence of the successful Maccabean revolt against Hellenism, so it is said, a puddle of olive oil that should have lasted only for one day managed to burn for eight days. Wow! Certain proof, not just of an Almighty, but of an Almighty with a special fondness for fundamentalists. Epicurus and Democritus had brilliantly discovered that the world was made up of atoms, but who cares about a mere fact like that when there is miraculous oil to be goggled at by credulous peasants?
